


crossing out the good years

by clean



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Character Study, Episode: s05e02 Chapter Seventy-Eight: The Preppy Murders, Gen, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Mental Health Issues, j/a cheating confrontation, no good resolution im sorry :-(
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-13 16:41:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29031828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clean/pseuds/clean
Summary: I have to tell the truth,Archie thinks, because he hates it, hates feeling like the fact that he’s a liar is written all over him.It’s what he’d want. It’s the right thing to do.Or, there’s one person who doesn’t know yet.
Relationships: Archie Andrews & Fred Andrews, Archie Andrews & Jughead Jones, Archie Andrews/Betty Cooper (Mentioned), Archie Andrews/Veronica Lodge (mentioned), Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones (mentioned)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 43





	crossing out the good years

**Author's Note:**

> posted pre-episode, for the record. i started this back in september and it will be completely thrown out the window tonight but i do not care! if the writers can’t write confrontations and choose instead to have archie suppress his guilt until he breaks down with no real resolution that’s fine i guess but i’m hoping they won’t totally do that.
> 
> i don’t take any particular stance on the b/a/v triangle in this, so.

_But this is nice, right?_ It rings in Archie’s head day in, day out; lying awake in the middle of the night even though he has class at 8 the next morning. _It’s not like we can do anything… more than this,_ Betty had said. _And you love Veronica, don’t you?_ Archie tries to think of better responses he could’ve given— _I know that,_ he could’ve told her, _of course I know that._ Or _yes, of course I love Veronica. That was never in question. But we have to be here for some reason, right? Why would we do this? What’s wrong with us? What’s wrong with_ me?

He keeps breaking pencils during class. Reggie sits in front of him in Myth and he glances backwards every time he hears Archie press the lead tip so deeply into the paper that it snaps and breaks off.

“Dude,” he says, after the second time Archie does it in the same Tuesday block period. “Can you chill? Get a stress ball, or something?” He must be genuinely worried, because Reggie isn’t the type to ever suggest real solutions.

“I’m _fine,”_ Archie says, brushing the remnants off of his desk. Reggie just shrugs.

“Whatever, man. I get it.” He turns forward again. _You don’t get it,_ Archie thinks. _None of you would get it._ There’s that tape of the Black Hood on his mind and the kiss and how not everyone even knows yet. Why couldn’t his personal life have chosen a better time to implode than right now? Why _this_ week?

When the bell rings, Archie realizes he hasn’t written a single thing down about _Siddhartha_ or spirituality or whatever next week’s quiz is supposed to be about, hasn’t heard a single word of the lecture given. _Whatever,_ he thinks. _Not like it matters, anyway._

  
  


Hiram finds him at the community center on Wednesday afternoon. Archie’s been avoiding going outside since prom night, having kept to himself after school and just staying in bed not doing anything—including his homework. But Munroe needs him to watch the gym today so he’s here, and alone, and he’s _definitely_ here when Hiram locks an arm around his neck.

He’s muttering something about _how dare you_ and _betray my daughter_ that Archie really doesn’t hear at all, can barely hear anything but muffled white noise, the same as he has all week. But he’s not as strong as he used to be. Archie pushes him off and Hiram lunges forward again, catches him right under his eye—it hurts, feels hard enough to bruise, but it doesn’t feel like it’s bleeding, so. Archie blocks his next hit, shoves him backwards so that Hiram’s back hits the lower ropes of the boxing ring.

“What’s your problem?” Hiram laughs, clearly angry, as he touches his knuckles. Archie almost feels bad for pushing him while he’s sick, but it’s not like he started it.

“You’re just like your father,” he sneers, “nothing more than a man with no honor.” Something in Archie’s mind clicks open and he presses down on Hiram’s windpipe until he’s struggling to breathe.

“Don’t fucking talk about my dad,” Archie says, keeping his arm tight against his throat. “Don’t go there with me, because I promise you will _not_ survive that conversation, do you hear me, Mr. Lodge?”

“Archie!” Tom Keller calls from the other side of the room, just on time for his check-in. “Archie, back off.” And he does, taking a step back and watching as Hiram inhales, reaching up to touch his neck.

Archie’s never been a killer—never wanted to be, even if sometimes it feels like there’s something inside him that makes him work wrong, like he might end up one anyway. And he knows that, really, he does, but there’s something about the word _father_ in Hiram’s voice that makes him remember he’s capable of it. He could, if he really wanted to.

  
  


He goes on a run that night, the way he usually does when things are bad. Running is easy: the only things he needs to focus on are where he’s going and the sound of his own breathing.

Somehow, it ends the same place it always seems to end these days: he takes a right into the cemetery, counts the rows of headstones without thinking until he’s kneeling in front of Fred’s, the grass soft and damp against his knees.

Back when they were kids, Betty never missed church once. Archie remembers asking her once if she believed there was some kind of god out there, when they were in fifth grade or so, remembers her answer clear as day: _There has to be, Archie. What else is there?_

Jughead never went at all. He and Archie still had the same conversation, once, up in the treehouse after school. _No,_ he’d told Archie. _We just have other people. So we find things to hold on to. To believe in._

_I wonder what_ you _believe in,_ Archie recalls teasing him, _probably the stories Pop tells about the secret recipe he definitely doesn’t have._ Jughead had glanced up at him, his eyes shining with a sort of look Archie didn’t quite understand. _Believe me,_ he’d said, _there are other things._

The Andrews have never been too spiritual—his dad would put up a tree every Christmas and his mom taught him how to light the candles, but they never really went to church or shul. It was more about practice than belief, about routine rather than abstract ideas. Archie has always liked when things feel real and concrete, when he doesn’t have to worry about them slipping away from him.

_This must be what religion feels like,_ Archie thinks, staring at the gravestone. He reaches out and runs his fingers over the lettering, just to make it more real.

“Dad,” he says. “Dad, I keep messing up, and I don’t know what to do, and I need you here. I need you here so badly.” He takes a breath and it comes out shaky, not at all as confident as his easy running habits. _There has to be,_ Betty had told him, and _we just have other people,_ Jughead had said, and Archie has neither: it’s just him and the cold ground, the feeling like ice seeping into his skin. “I don’t know what to do, Dad,” he says, desperate. “Please, just give me something. Anything. I don’t know who I’m supposed to talk to when you’re not around. I don’t know who I’m supposed to ask. You were so good and I can’t do that. I could never be you.”

It’s silent. It’s so silent that when Archie cries it’s the only thing he can hear, and it feels like it echoes around the cemetery, like the sound bounces off each gravestone and out into the stars. “I don’t know,” he repeats, stumbling over it, “I don’t know and I don’t want to keep _lying_ to people and I just want everyone to be happy. Aren’t we supposed to be happy? Shouldn’t we get that? Doesn’t everyone else deserve that? Why do _I_ have to bring them down?”

Fred says nothing, and the faint mimicry of his voice in Archie’s head that lives in him even now and gives him everyday instructions and encouragements is silent, too. _I have to tell the truth,_ Archie thinks, because he hates it, hates feeling like the fact that he’s a liar is written all over him. _It’s what he’d want. It’s the right thing to do._

  
  


He and Veronica are terrible at pretending they’re okay, Archie’s realized—or at least, he is. His hands are all shaky when they’re hanging out in the student lounge, and usually they’d be all over each other, but there’s clearly something up. He feels kind of sick putting his arm around her, even though they’d tried to talk about boundaries while pretending. It’s like he’ll ruin her if he touches her for too long.

There’s a pause in the conversation Archie’s not really listening to. Betty cocks her head to the side, leaning into Jughead. “Arch, is something wrong?” she asks, and Jughead looks up at him, too, his arm curled over her shoulders.

“Are you kidding me?” he says before he can stop himself, “what isn’t wrong?” Betty just blinks, not even looking surprised. Jughead looks worried, and Veronica schools herself from a look of knowing sadness into neutrality.

There’s a beat of silence. Betty and Veronica are at a standstill—and Veronica _knows,_ and Betty doesn’t know that Veronica knows. Archie has so many problems right now and this is the least of them, but it’s not like anyone in this circle gets that. “Do you want to work on our bio project tonight, Arch?” Jughead asks. “It might help get your mind off… you know.” He makes a vague motion with his hands, but they all know what he’s talking about: the tape that he’d had to deliver to Charles. And the three of them also know what Jughead isn’t aware of—the kiss.

“Yeah, uh, sure,” Archie half-mumbles, adjusting his backpack strap over his shoulder. At least Jughead’s the one person here he hasn’t kissed, so they can’t mess things up that way.

“You sure, Archie?” Veronica asks, tapping his arm. He glances over at her—she gives him a look and a barely-there eyebrow raise asking if he wants to get out of this somehow, and he’s grateful for her; that even after he’s done something like this to her she wants to check in on him.

“Yeah, Ronnie,” he says, forcing a smile, trying his best to look normal. “It’ll be good for me, probably.” _I don’t really know what’s good for me anymore,_ he doesn’t say, but she seems to see it in him anyway.

  
  


“Isn’t it crazy how we’re graduating soon?” Jughead asks suddenly, looking up from their biology project. Archie pauses in the middle of writing a sentence about adaptation, which he honestly thought they’d already covered freshman year.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I’m not really sure how we made it here, you know?”

“Yeah,” Jughead agrees, softer. He looks back down at where he’d been assembling a phylogenetic tree on their posterboard. “It’s weird. The thought of going to college, getting out of Riverdale. I didn’t always know it was an option.”

“Me neither,” Archie says, and Jughead doesn’t know anything about how Archie’s not going to the Naval Academy and how he still might not even graduate—as far as he knows, Archie’s going to make it out of Riverdale, too. He picks his phone up from the living room table, frowning at the screen.

“I’ve got to meet up with Betty. Text me later?”

“Sure,” Archie agrees, and Jughead slips his phone into his jacket pocket, standing up. Archie walks him to the door, like any good host would, and watches as Jughead takes two steps down at once. It’s always caught Archie off-guard how he does that—the spacing of the porch stairs is too awkward to make it comfortable—but he does it anyway.

“Wait,” Archie says, and he wants to say it but he _can’t,_ not when he doesn’t know how to, not when Betty doesn’t want that. Jughead turns at the bottom of the stairs, looks back up at Archie.

“Yeah?” he says, expectant, so Archie takes the three steps down and hugs him instead. It’s been forever—or not forever, really, but a few weeks, and the last time was a quiet moment in the bunker after Jughead had just risen from the dead, so. It hadn’t felt _normal._ They’d been waiting for Betty to return and continue the next phase of her cat-and-mouse game with Donna, but Archie hadn’t cared about that— _I freaked out when the front page of the morning paper had your face on it. Even though you’d just woken up, it just felt so real,_ he’d told him. _I’m real,_ Jughead had said, wrapping an arm around his shoulder, _hey, breathe, I’m right here._

“So much for ‘not hugging in front of this whole town’,” Jughead laughs, but winds his arms around Archie’s neck, relaxing into the touch. “Though I guess it’s just us and we’re kind of past that by now.”

Archie doesn’t say anything. If he opens his mouth it feels like he’ll somehow confess to all of it and he can’t do that, not when Betty hasn’t said anything yet, not when it would ruin everything.

Jughead seems to sense there’s something up. “Are you okay?” he asks more carefully. “Arch. Hey.”

_Where to even start?_ “I’m really scared,” Archie says.

“Is this because of the tape? Because we’re graduating?” _Of losing Veronica. Of losing you. Of losing myself,_ he wants to say, but he doesn’t respond. Jughead’s silent for a moment before he draws Archie closer, letting him rest his head on his shoulder.

“Arch,” he says again, running his hand over Archie’s back in a gentle motion, clearly trying to calm him down. It almost works. “School’s almost over. Charles and his team are on the whole auteur thing, and Betty and I are still helping out, so we’ll get to the bottom of it. And you have all your friends on your side. You’ll make it through this. You’re—you know. A regular hometown hero.”

_The hero isn’t selfish. The hero cares about other people. The hero isn’t supposed to mess up as much as I do._ “I’m not a hero,” Archie says, half-muffled into his shoulder.

“Don’t be purposefully obtuse,” Jughead tells him. “You’re good. You know that, right?”

“Sure.”

“Say it yourself.”

“I’m good,” Archie says, and Jughead smiles, pulling back and lightly ruffling Archie’s hair. “Archie Andrews,” he sounds out thoughtfully. “I shouldn’t have let Veronica steal my prom date away from me.”

_Prom._ All Archie can think about is Veronica, her weight in his arms while she cried in the music room; how he’d watched Betty press her lips to Jughead’s on the dancefloor, their eyes both closed, bathed in purple-blue-gold lighting, his mind set on _he doesn’t know. She hasn’t told him._

“Arch,” Jughead repeats. He touches his shoulders, making Archie make eye contact with him. “Hey. You’re quiet. What’s wrong?” It’s not a question anyone else would ever ask him, because Archie’s usually the quiet one when they’re all hanging out, anyway. But it’s Jughead, and there’s almost nothing he doesn’t know about Archie—apart from this.

“I kissed Betty,” Archie says finally, incapable of thinking of a better way to phrase it. Jughead blinks.

“Oh,” he says.

“Just once,” Archie says. “During Hedwig.”

Jughead takes a step back. Archie’s first instinct is to follow him, but he doesn’t. Jughead’s not Veronica. He doesn’t know what to do.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He doesn’t even sound that angry, just shocked and sad, which is so much worse because Archie can _do_ angry. He can’t do this.

“I’m not your girlfriend,” Archie says. “I don’t know. I mean, I didn’t think it was _my_ place to say anything! I hadn’t even told Veronica yet.”

“Hadn’t?” Jughead asks. “So you’ve told Veronica? But you two are still dating, aren’t you?” Archie hesitates. He doesn’t know how to explain it without it all coming out wrong.

“At prom,” he starts. “At prom, she was telling me about her future, _our_ future, and I told her, and we said we’d just keep it quiet, wait it out.”

“So now all three of you have been keeping it from me for a week? And what, you were just going to leave without telling me?”

“No, I… of course not,” Archie falters. He’d hoped he’d never have to tell Jughead. “I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to see _you_ hurt.”

“Fine,” Jughead says, crossing his arms. It’s an easy defense mechanism—he does it like Archie doesn’t know that, hasn’t seen him do it a million times already. “If you want to run away from things so badly, go to the Naval Academy, for all I care. I wouldn’t mind never seeing you again.”

“You don’t mean that,” Archie says. He knows he doesn’t. He can’t.

“I do,” Jughead tells him. He opens his mouth and closes it again, shaking his head—it’s rare that Jughead is ever speechless. “What’s _wrong_ with you? You don’t just do that to someone you love out of nowhere.”

“It just _happened,_ ” Archie says helplessly. “I don’t know how else to explain it to you. It was just… we were there, and it was all so _much,_ and it happened.”

“Oh, she just wanted you so bad that you couldn’t control it anymore?”

“No! It just happened. I don’t know how else to say it. I swear.”

“Yeah, ‘cause that’s how it always goes. Everyone always just _wants_ you, right?” The unspoken _and no one wants me_ hangs between them. As far as Archie knows, Jughead never harbored any secret feelings for Betty back when they were kids, but he was always jealous nonetheless, always wanted to be the only one taking up Archie’s time. In some respects, he’s never changed.

He doesn’t know how to respond, and besides, right now it really seems like Betty _doesn’t_ want him—that’s kind of the whole point. “Betty loves you,” he says instead. “Betty loves you, and she doesn’t want to give up what you have.” Jughead just stares at him.

“Why’d you do it?” he asks.

“Because,” Archie starts, and seems to think the better of it.

“Do you love her?” Jughead asks. “Oh, that’d be great. She spent years pining after you and all of a sudden you finally decide that you’re _ready_ for her?”

“Don’t put it all on me,” Archie responds, finally getting angry, and it’s clear from the way Jughead’s hands curl into fists that that’s all he had wanted: for Archie to fight back. “I didn’t force Betty to do anything.”

“I know you didn’t,” Jughead retracts. “No, Archie, I didn’t mean to imply that you…”

“Well, I didn’t,” Archie snaps.

“I know,” he says, “I know, I’m sorry,” even though it shouldn’t be him apologizing. It’s just another thing of theirs: Archie has this way of making him feel sorry even when he’s the one in the wrong. It’s not intentional, not an attempt at being manipulative or something he knows how to stop, but it’s the way they’ve always been. Jughead’s more sensitive around Archie and Archie hates it—hates himself for every word that cut too deep, every time he’s ever started a fight with him. He hates that he doesn’t know how to not make people feel bad. _If we can get past this,_ Archie thinks, _I’ll never fight with him ever again._

Jughead catches Archie’s wrist. He looks up at him in surprise—he didn’t expect Jughead to want to touch him again, to want anything to do with him. And from the sad, half-vacant expression on his face, it looks like Jughead’s not sure whether he does, either.

“Look,” he says, “look, I don’t know what’s going to happen when Betty and I talk it out. But I just want you to tell me _why._ Please. I just want to know why you did it.”

“Maybe you should talk to Betty,” Archie says, looking back down to where Jughead’s still clutching his wrist, tighter than he’d realized before. Jughead lets go.

“It’s not… it’s not just about Betty,” he says. “Archie. It’s not just about her. How long have we known each other?” Archie pauses, trying to come up with something concrete. He doesn’t know. He’s never _not_ known Jughead.

“I don’t know. Our whole lives.”

“Our whole _lives,”_ Jughead emphasizes. “Eighteen years? I don’t know. I literally don’t know what life would be like without you. You’re my best friend, Archie,” he says. “I guess it was stupid to think that I was yours too.”

Jughead’s always been good with words, even when they’re not kind ones—so Archie shouldn’t be as taken aback as he is, but it stings, hurts more than it would’ve if Jughead had just slapped him. “You are,” he says. “You are, don’t say that. Please.” He pauses, like he’s choking on the words. “You’re like my brother.”

Jughead shakes his head. “You’re not my brother, Archie. You know why? If you were my actual brother, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. We’d fight about it, sure, and I’d still be hurt, but at the end of the day we’d be family. But I’m…” he stumbles over the wording. Archie wants to say something, again, the same pressure in his throat, but he doesn’t. “I have to choose to keep you in my life. And I guess it’s not really a choice, because my dad is kind of your dad, now, and… your dad was like my dad, too, and you’re not my brother but I don’t think I could get rid of you if I tried.”

“I don’t want to,” Archie says, “I don’t want to get rid of you.”

“It’s not your choice,” Jughead says. It feels like that has to be a recurring theme by now: Archie didn’t get to choose what to do with Betty, or Veronica, or telling Jughead. He really never stood a chance at all.

“I’m not asking for a second chance,” Archie says. “I screwed up again and again and I’ve already given up all my chances, but I can’t just… lose you. Please.”

“I can’t… I can’t lose you either,” Jughead says. Archie’s hurt him before, but this time feels different. There’s no way he can even rationalize it to himself, so how would Jughead be able to? “But how am I supposed to trust you?”

“You can’t,” Archie says. “I don’t know. You can’t.”

Jughead blinks, glancing off to the side. It’s the thing he does whenever he’s trying not to cry and of _course_ Archie knows that, because he’s seen it a hundred times already, has held him back when he was worse at suppressing it—so many late night sleepovers when they were kids and Mr. Jones hadn’t made it home. “Whatever I did to you,” he starts, seems to think the better of it. “Whatever I did to you, I’m sorry.”

“I wasn’t thinking,” Archie tries, “you didn’t do anything wrong. It was me. It was all me.” But he’s never been the best at words, and it all comes out hollow, the emotion never landing. He swallows; tries again. “How do you feel?”

“You want me to be honest?” Jughead asks. Archie nods. “Like I want to drive to Sweetwater Bridge and jump off. Or never talk to you ever again.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Go on,” Archie says, gesturing to himself.

“What?”

“Hit me,” he says. “Or slap me, I guess. Whatever it is.”

“What?” Jughead repeats, stunned. “Archie, I’d never… Why would I do that?”

“I fucked up,” Archie tries, but Jughead just shakes his head.

“It’s not okay,” he says. “But you can’t punish yourself for it like you usually do. You’re too hard on yourself—god knows you’ve already been beating yourself up over it.” He catches sight of something on the side of Archie’s face, reaches up to touch it. It must be the bruise from Hiram, Archie realizes. “Jesus, Arch. Did you get into a fight?”

“I deserved it,” Archie says. Jughead just looks sad.

“No one deserves that,” he says. “Ever. Especially not you.” His phone chimes with a text message and he drops his hand to check it, leaving Archie feeling cold all over again. “Shit, Betty and I are breaking into the FBI office tonight. I really need to meet her in, like, a minute.”

“Are you going to tell her?” Archie asks. There’s a beat of silence—he wonders if he never should’ve said anything at all. At least Betty would be happy. At least Jughead would be happy, too.

“I’ll talk to her tonight,” Jughead says. “After we’re finished with whatever work Chuck gives us—I don’t want to get in the way of our investigation.” He gives Archie a once-over. “You should go take a shower and sleep early, or something. We can finish our biology project next week.”

“I don’t deserve you,” Archie says. Jughead shakes his head, but he doesn’t say _no._ Maybe he just figures it’s not worth fighting about.

“I’m really mad at you,” Jughead tells him, and Archie nods. _Obviously._ “But I can’t hate you. And seeing you hurt won’t make me feel any better about what you did, so.”

“You’re supposed to be mad at me,” Archie answers, feeling so much younger than he is.

“I’ll have time to be mad at you when you’re not in the middle of reliving one of the worst moments of your life,” Jughead says. “I care more about not letting you feel alone than I do about… whatever it was that you did. I’m sorry for yelling. Go inside, Arch, please.”

Archie watches him leave in silence. Maybe telling the truth is the right thing to do, and maybe Jughead hadn’t completely abandoned him like Archie had thought he might, but—still. It doesn’t make him feel any less empty.

The truth will set you free, or whatever. Unless it just doesn’t.

  
  


It ends up raining that night—and while Veronica deals, or whatever she’s doing to handle this, and Betty and Jughead do whatever they’re doing about the tapes, about the mystery they’re wrapped up in that no one else really wants to even touch, least of all Archie, he reevaluates his choices.

He probably won’t graduate, and there’s no way in hell he wants to stay in Riverdale for another year, definitely not while being Hiram’s public enemy number one. Veronica wants them to just go their separate ways as soon as the year is over. Betty doesn’t seem to want to talk to him ever again. Jughead’s going to have to react, at some point, and he might not care so much about Archie then.

They’re all what-ifs—but really, all choices are, Archie thinks, typing _US army recruitment_ into Google and clicking _search._ Might as well make his own.

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from [my tears ricochet](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWbDJFtHl3w) \- taylor swift. feel free to comment or find me on [tumblr](https://englishmajorjughead.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/nymonologue)


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